As a child, I always wanted to have a more realistic experience while watching films and cartoons: I wanted to get inside and take action. Years later this dream almost came true with a new era of entertainment – 3D movies, which were brought to us with the help of technology. Do you remember your first impression of a 3D movie? I do. It was amazing.

Technology can change our life in many ways. Take, for example, virtual reality (VR). The main idea is the same — to widen our vision of the world. The VR devices today can look strange and bulky, but they are extremely useful. For example, for architects, who found a whole new universe of possibilities.

The VR goggles are the only thing one requires to start the work with virtual. But it is even not necessary to buy ones. They can be replaced with a simple cardboard box – Google Cardboard, for example. So, a smartphone and a box can help you make your way to the land of virtual reality.

Architecture took its first steps in a digital world in the late 1960s, when first VR complexes were created for military training purposes. Later, the emergence of 3D modeling was a real breakthrough in this field. But at first, VR devices were not affordable and occupied a lot of space.

Everything changed in the 1990s, when the VR technologies became mobile. But still, they did not find a lot of use in everyday life due to a complexity and high price. Only in the late 2000s — early 2010s VR became really available for people.

Today, anyone can take tours to the famous museums, historical interest points and other objects with the help of VR. 3D modeling combined with VR presents limitless opportunities for architectural purposes.

The main advantage of VR is that customer can get almost real-life experience of interacting with the building. The level of realism is so high, that one can observe even the smallest details of the construction or design. And when there is need of some edition of the construction or design, the client can specify the future plans. It can reduce the amount of time spent on the reworking and fixing problems.

The industry of VR architecture and design started gaining its momentum not too long ago, so the market itself is still thirst for innovations. Being in this trend means providing new business opportunities.

One more important thing is software. Today, modern physical 3D engines (and there are dozens of them) also have a function of emulating the physics of the real world — gravity, wind, rains and even the impact of time. The evolution of software is perpetual, so those engines will be even more accurate in the future.

Virtual reality was brought to our life only a few years ago, but it already can be extremely helpful in many ways. It is very important to catch the moment and start working with VR now, on the dawn of it.